


Long-Distance Running

by AliciaJewel



Category: Original Work
Genre: Disabled Character, Gen, literary fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-22
Updated: 2015-10-22
Packaged: 2018-04-27 14:52:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5052985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AliciaJewel/pseuds/AliciaJewel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After high school football star Ken Johnson gets into a car crash that leaves him unable to play and loses his popularity, he's forced to reevaluate the way he's been cruising through school now that he actually has to put in some effort. Hopefully, his new friends on the track team can help him get a fresh start, but some habits are hard to break.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Technically the third story I wrote for my fiction workshop class in 2013, but the second one has been lost with time, and I don't really care to look for it. Once again, this story falls under that nebulous category of "literary fiction."
> 
> I also went ahead and split this into two chapters since it's so dang long.

As his drama queen of a sister later put it, Ken’s fall was Shakespearian.

It was the summer before his senior year of high school, and Ken felt like a king. He was the star of the football team, the most popular guy in school, guaranteed Valedictorian… His only real trouble in life was deciding which college to go to—he was pretty much guaranteed a full ride wherever he wanted to go. It was just a matter of deciding which colors he wanted to wear every day during game season.

And then the accident happened. He remembered a swerving car speeding straight towards him, trying to pull off the road to avoid getting hit only to find himself spinning out of control, a split second of painful impact… He woke up in the hospital with a lot of bruises and a seriously messed-up leg. The doctors said they wouldn’t have to cut it off, but he would have to go through physical therapy followed what could be months of recuperation before he could run again. That meant no more football. No chance for any scouts to see him play. Bye-bye to that free ride to whatever college he wanted.

Most of the football team came in a group to visit him once while he was in the hospital. They offered the usual encouragements, gave him a few pats on the back, and left a few minutes later. Short-Stuff lagged behind as the team filed out the door. “It’s not all bad, Ken,” he said in a voice too timid for someone who played football. “I mean, you’ve still got your grades. You’ll get into a good college.” He scuttled out after the rest of the team.

Ken folded his arms behind his head and stared at the ceiling, smirking. Yeah, there was that. Not that he was some kind of nerd or anything, but being on the football team did give him certain perks with the teachers and the smartest kids in school.

His physical therapist, Dr. Powell, was nice. And a girl. Married, but still a girl helping to stretch his bad leg and support him when he was having trouble walking properly. Still, it was frustrating having to grit his teeth to hold back those groans of pain during the first bout of therapy. It was even more frustrating that when he finally got to use the exercise equipment, he was way behind what he was able to do just a couple of months ago. He felt like an out-of-shape loser.

“Very good work today, Ken,” Dr. Powell said at the end of one of their sessions at the physical therapy center. “You’re really improving.”

Improving or not, he still felt like crap for being so far behind.

* * *

By the time he could walk without having to use crutches, football practice had already started. Not like it mattered—there was no way Ken could play with the condition his leg was in. Being able to walk was one thing, but running across the field with eleven other guys trying to stop him? There was no way he’d be able to pull that off.

Dr. Powell recommended that he started with some light jogging and then work his way into more intense sprints. “And more pain does _not_ mean more gain,” she said. “It means you’re pushing yourself too hard and need to slow down.”

“Funny, Coach used to say the exact opposite.”

“You’re not on the football field, Ken. The harder you try to push yourself this early on, the longer it’ll take for you to get back to where you were before. And I’m sure the last thing you want is to lose use of your leg again.” She shrugged. “And if all else fails, just imagine your coach screaming at you to slow down.”

Ken sort of doubted that Coach would ever say something like that, but he told Dr. Powell that he’d try to imagine it, anyway.

He ended up going to the stadium on Monday afternoon a week before school started. Only God knew why he chose to go there instead of just jogging around the neighborhood. “Huh,” he said as he pulled up. Someone was already on the track. It was hard to make out any details from where he was, but the black ponytail flopping about told him that the runner was either a girl or an effeminate guy.

When he got down to the track, the definitely female runner was rounding the bend back to the starting line. A _ca-chick_ sound could be heard with every other step she took, getting louder as she got closer. “Hey,” she said with a wave once she was in earshot. She slowed to a stop in front of Ken. “Don’t usually see anyone around here this time of day.” She was beaming up at him despite the fact that she sounded a bit winded.

Ken barely heard her, too distracted by what he had seen as she came closer: her left leg was missing below the knee and had been replaced by a prosthetic leg with a running blade. He stared at for several seconds with his mouth hanging half-open. The girl put her hands on her hips and bent over so she could look Ken in the eye. “Hello? Earth to guy just standing there.”

“Huh?” Ken finally looked up into the girl’s bright blue eyes. She was grinning even though, by all logic, she should have been at least a little miffed off at Ken staring at her leg. “Oh, hey.” She seemed familiar, but Ken couldn’t quite put his finger on why.

“You’re Ken, right? Ken Johnson?”

Ken smirked and stood to his full height, puffing out his chest. “You’ve heard of me, huh?”

“Who hasn’t after what happened last season against the Tigers?” She walked over to the bench, her artificial leg clicking every time she stepped on it, picked up a red water bottle, and took a slow drink. This girl was no amateur—anyone who was here just to run for fun would have downed the whole bottle in just a few gulps. “Sorry about what happened to your leg, though.”

“Oh. You heard about that, too, huh?” Ken started to slouch like the air was being let out of his torso.

“My boyfriend knows a few guys on the team.” She set her water bottle down and gave Ken a pat on the shoulder. “But, hey, don’t sweat it. You’ll be good as new before you know it! I’m Julia, by the way.” She stuck her hand out. Ken took it and gave it a half-hearted shake. It was still cold from holding the water bottle. “I guess you’re here to run?”

“Jog. Dr. Powell said I need to start slow.”

“Oh, you’re seeing Dr. Powell? She’s great—she really helped me out when I got my new leg.”

“Yeah, that’s great.” There wasn’t a hint of giving a crap in Ken’s voice.

“Come on, I’ll jog with you.” She walked onto the track towards one of the inner lanes. “I need a cool-down, anyway.”

Great. Ken couldn’t even run at full speed, and this one-legged girl was using this as a cool-down? “Unbelievable,” he mumbled as he followed Julia onto the track. She was either hard of hearing or really good at ignoring him.

They started jogging at a slow, steady pace around the track. The sound of their sneakers hitting the polyurethane was punctuated by the rhythmic _ca-chick_ of Julia’s running blade. Ken set his jaw, trying to ignore the dull ache in his leg. After all, he was used to pain—being tackled by guys built like trucks, running across the entire field with his lungs burning, practicing for hours on end until his bones felt like concrete… This was nothing.

 _Ca-chick_.

“Doing okay?” Julia asked as they rounded the first bend.

 _Ca-chick_.

“No problem,” Ken said with a confident smirk.

 _Ca-chick_.

Ken narrowed his eyes and forced himself to look straight ahead. That sound. That damned sound of Julia’s artificial leg hitting the track was all he could hear. From the corner of his eye, he could see the sun reflecting off the running blade. Without realizing it, he started running faster to get that out of his vision.

“Um, Ken…”

 _Ca-chick_.

He ignored her, trying to drown out every sound except that of his heart beating in his chest.

“Hey, Ken, you should probably—”

 _Ca-chick_. _Ca-chick_.

He forced himself to go faster to get away from that sound. _Focus on running. Focus on running. Focus on—_

“Ken!”

“Gah!” The next thing Ken knew, he was lying on the track with searing pain shooting through his leg.

“Oh, my gosh! Ken!” Julia knelt down next to him. Her running blade was right in his face. “Are you okay?”

Ken rolled over onto his back and sat up. “I’m fine. Just stepped wrong, I guess.” Christ, this was humiliating. He was Ken Johnson, for God’s sake! A little run like that should have been nothing to him.

“Come on, let me help you up.”

“I can get up my—” Ken sucked in a breath through his teeth as he tried to stand with his bad leg. Okay, that was dumb. He resigned himself to letting Julia help him to his feet and helping him limp towards the bench.

“You should really be more careful,” Julia said after Ken had sat down. “You don’t wanna end up in a wheelchair, do you?”

Wheelchair… _That’s_ where Ken had seen Julia before: she was that wheelchair girl who had sat in the front of his English class during their sophomore year. She had been in a couple of classes during his junior year, too, wheelchair-less and sporting an artificial leg. He couldn’t believe he had forgotten about something like that.

Julia didn’t even give Ken a chance to respond before she went on: “Go home and get some rest, okay? I’ll be here tomorrow if you wanna try again. Slowly.” She put her hands on her hips, narrowed her eyes, and pursed her lips into a frown, but she could only hold that face for a few seconds before she giggled.

Ken really didn’t want to call it quits on this pathetic note. He opened his mouth, ready to protest, but his eyes fell on Julia’s running blade for a split second. That _ca-chink_ sound started echoing in his ears again, followed by Dr. Powell’s voice telling him to take it slow. Only she sounded like Coach when he yelled at him. Wow, that trick really did work.

“All right,” he said. He got up and walked towards the gate, stepping gingerly with his sore leg. Julia snatched up her water bottle and jogged over next to him. He really didn’t need her keeping an eye on him like, but he wasn’t going to say no to a cute girl walking so close to him. Even if it was hard as hell to not stare at her leg.

“See you tomorrow,” Julia said with a wave as they walked towards their respective cars.

“See you,” Ken said half-heartedly. After today, he was considering just jogging around the neighborhood instead.

And on Tuesday, he did. He thought he would be relieved to not have to hear that constant _ca-chick_ sound as Julia’s running blade hit the polyurethane, but jogging along a silent, empty street wasn’t much better. After about ten minutes, he turned around, got in his car, and drove to the track.

He ran with Julia every day for the rest of the week, using the annoying _ca-chick_ sound to motivate him and starting up conversations to try to drown it out when it got on his nerves. He usually talked about football, namely some of his greatest plays, and Julia usually talked about things that happened on the track team.

“You’re on the track team?” he asked.

Julia giggled breathlessly. “What, did you think I just came down here for fun?”

Ken shrugged. She seemed like she knew what she was doing when she ran, missing leg or not, but he didn’t think she actually ran track with that running blade. Maybe she was trying to imitate Oscar Pistorius. Hopefully minus the “killing his girlfriend” part.

“You should totally join next semester,” Julia said. “I bet you’d make a great sprinter.”

Ken smirked. “Yeah? Maybe I will.” He was a damn good sprinter, after all: his average 40-yard dash time was 4.8 seconds. It wasn’t football, but it would be a great way to show everyone that he was still the best runner the school had, and since track season didn’t start until January, his leg had plenty of time to fully recover.

* * *

It only took a few days for all of Ken’s teachers to assign him a bunch of homework all at once. But he wasn’t worried. While he was lying on the couch in the TV-lit living room with his legs propped up, he pulled out his cell phone and scrolled through his contact list until he found Keith Connor’s number.

“Hello?” Keith said. He always sounded like he hadn’t slept the night before.

“I’ve got work for you,” Ken said. “I’ve got this stack of—”

“Oh, Ken.” Keith sounded like he hadn’t expected it to be him. What, did he not check his caller ID? “Actually, I’m not available this year. I told Chris I’d help him out so his grades don’t slip, and—”

“Wait, Chris? Chris Pearson?” _The new QB?_

“Yeah. Anyway, I’ve gotta go.” A little jingle in Ken’s ear told him that Keith had hung up on him.

“That little fag,” Ken mumbled as he set his phone on the couch. He looked at the papers sitting on the end table and reached for the one at the top of the little pile. It was a worksheet with a bunch of measurement conversion exercises. “I don’t know what any of this crap means.” He slapped the paper back onto the pile and picked up his phone to call his girlfriend, Taylor. Maybe she knew a chemistry geek or two.

The line rang three times. “Hey, it’s Taylor. Leave a message, and I’ll get right b—”

Ken hit the end call button on the touchscreen. Three rings meant that Taylor had rejected the call. What the hell was going on?

He reached over and grabbed the worksheet again. He thought about calling Julia since they ended up in the same class, but he didn’t have her number. Besides, why would she do his homework for him? Only one thing left to do now: look up the answers on the internet.

* * *

“Ken…”

Someone was whispering and poking Ken’s arm while he slept on his desk. He turned his head and opened an eye to see Julia looking down at him with her eyebrows arched towards her forehead. She whispered something else that Ken didn’t quite catch. He closed his eye again.

“Ken,” Julia whispered through her teeth, louder now. She started shaking his arm. Why was she trying to wake him up? The bell hadn’t rung yet.

Someone cleared his throat above him. Ken sat up and blinked a few times, letting the fuzzy image of his teacher, Mr. Morrison, come into focus. There was a stack of papers in the crook of his arm, and with his other hand he held up a single sheet. He slapped the homework paper from the first day of class onto Ken’s desk. It had a big red “0” written on it, followed by “Show your work!” and “See me after class” in progressively smaller writing.

“What the hell?” Ken mumbled.

Mr. Morrison handed Julia her “100” paper and continued down the aisle. Julia opened her binder so quickly that Ken’s paper got blown into the air. He caught it as Julia put her paper into the pocket and slammed the binder shut, creating another gust of wind. “Sorry,” she whispered.

The rest of the students stampeded out of the room as soon as the bell rang, as if they had been sitting on the edges of their seats and waiting for the sound of the bell. Which they probably had been, actually. Ken wanted to blend into the crowd and get out of the “See me after class” note, but he felt Mr. Morrison’s glare on his back. He hated teachers who could do it. Even for a guy like Ken, it was still creepy. Ken picked up his backpack, which was mostly empty, and slung it over one shoulder.

“Hey, meet me in the cafeteria when you’re done,” Julia whispered before she scampered out the door.

Mr. Morrison was already sitting at his desk when Ken trudged to the back of the room. “What’d you need to see me for?” Ken asked.

Mr. Morrison folded his hands together and rested his chin on them with a closed-eyed sigh. “Ken,” he said, “as a teacher, I expect a certain level of respect from my students. I expect them to call me ‘Mr. Morrison’ or ‘sir’ when they address me.” He opened his eyes so he could look right into Ken’s with a frown. “But more than that, I expect them to at least put some effort into my class.”

“I did the homework.” A long pause followed. Ken shifted his gaze to the side and sighed through his nose. “Sir.”

“No, what you did was copy the answers from somewhere—or somebody—and put them onto the worksheet.” He lowered his hands onto his desk. “I’ve been teaching for a long time, Ken. I know your type. You think because you used to be the star of the football team that you can get away with anything, that the teachers will give you whatever grade you want because you’re too good to study. I don’t play that game, Ken. If you don’t do the work for my class, I’ll be more than happy to fail you. And I’m sure that you don’t want to deal with me again in summer school, do you?” His face hadn’t changed at all. This guy was _not_ screwing around.

“No, sir.” Ken didn’t wait for the pause this time. Somehow, Mr. Morrison’s silence was worse than his lecture.

A smile finally appeared on Mr. Morrison’s face, but Ken couldn’t tell if it was sincere or one of those “I’m going to make your life hell” teacher smiles. “So we have an understanding, then. As long as you do the work for my class, you’ll pass. That sounds like a fair deal, doesn’t it?”

It sounded like a crappy deal. Ken could always find some way to get around doing the homework, but he was screwed if he couldn’t copy off someone else’s tests without the teacher caring. Mr. Morrison continued watching him with a steady, smiling expression.

“Yea—Yes, sir.” It was all Ken could say at that point. He’d just have to figure something out later.

* * *

Ken had forgotten about Julia by the time he got to the cafeteria. His usual group was already sitting at their table, and—Ken’s eyes went wide. He walked over to the table with long, determined strides, his fists clenched.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he asked above the usual chatter in the cafeteria.

Taylor untangled her arms from around Chris Pearson’s shoulders and turned around to look at Ken with wide blue eyes. “Ken!” she said. “I didn’t—I didn’t think you were coming.”

“What—?” He turned on Chris and grabbed the back of his shirt. “What the hell are you doing with my girlfriend, you asshole?”

Chris raised his hands to shoulder level. “Hey, she told me you guys broke up.”

“Yeah, man, lay off,” Tyrone, one of the linebackers, said as he grabbed Ken’s wrist and pulled it away from Chris’s shirt. Despite Tyrone’s relaxed tone of voice, Ken felt enough pressure in his grip to know that Tyrone would gladly beat the crap out of him if he tried anything.

“Well, she never bothered telling me,” Ken said, turning his glare to Taylor. He wrenched his hand free from Tyrone’s grip.

“Ken—” Taylor started to say.

“Shut up,” Ken said. “What, did you think you could just not tell me? That I wouldn’t find out, you slut?”

Taylor’s jaw fell open. Ken looked to the rest of the group for agreement, but they were all just staring at him. A few of the girls were looking at him with disgust, but the rest of the faces were blank. And then Taylor started crying. She buried her face in her hands and sobbed in the fakest way that Ken had ever heard. Yet Chris’s arms were immediately around her, comforting her. The students at the tables around them went silent as they watched.

“What is your problem?” one of the girls asked. She nudged her boyfriend’s shoulder. “He just made Taylor cry!”

A few people started mumbling things like “Yeah, he did” and “What a jerk,” and one girl even said “I bet he broke up with her, and now he’s just jealous.”

“What?” Ken asked, though he wasn’t quite sure about what. “Come on, she’s just faking it! You guys aren’t seriously—”

“Dude,” Chris said, “just get out of here.”

Ken looked at all the faces staring at him. The ones that had looked confused or apathetic before had turned to glaring, shaking their heads, or both. What was this, some kind of screwed-up nightmare? These guys were supposed to be defending Ken, not ganging up on him! Why were they taking Taylor’s side?

“Fuck you guys.” Ken turned from the table and went to the dwindling food line. There was a lot more he wanted to say, a lot more yelling he wanted to do at Taylor, but the words were caught in his throat at the thought of the guys deciding to beat him up after school or something. It wasn’t like Ken wouldn’t be able to fight back—he’d been in his fair share of fights, but he’d always had at least a few members of the team to back him up. Now they were all suddenly against him. Christ, this _was_ a nightmare.

“Hey,” a familiar female voice said from a nearby table. Julia got up and stood next to Ken in line. “What happened?” She glanced over at Ken’s usual table.

“My girlfriend cheated on me,” Ken said, “and now she’s trying to act all innocent.” He wasn’t sure why he was telling her that. What made him think she would believe him with everyone else ganging up on him?

“Oh, man, I’m really sorry,” Julia said. “That sucks. Hey, you should come sit with us. I’ve still got something to ask you about, too.”

Oh, yeah, she’d wanted Ken to meet her here. Well, it wasn’t like he had much of a choice now, anyway. There was no way he could sit in his usual spot after what had just happened. “Sure,” he said.

Ken was the last person through the line, so he got stuck with a chicken strip that was almost completely burnt on one side, a little blob of mashed potatoes that had been scraped from the bottom and sides of the container, the last of the corn, and a carton of skim milk. At least the fruit didn’t look terrible. He sat down between Julia and a tall blonde girl with a slim, athletic build. Actually, just about everyone at the table had similar builds, although a few of them had more muscle than the rest.

“Everyone, this is Ken,” Julia said as he sat down. “Ken, this is everyone.” She started pointing to the people sitting around the table starting with the blonde next to him: “Amanda, Tara, Joel, Sarah, Cody, and my boyfriend, James.”

James, who seemed to be a few inches shorter than Ken and had a head of curly brown hair, smiled and gave Ken a short wave. “Hey.”

“James is awesome at chemistry,” Julia said before Ken could return the greeting. “He got an A in AP last year.”

James shrugged. “Only because they bump you up if you take the AP exam.”

Ken took a bite out of his chicken, trying to pretend that it didn’t taste terrible. “Hm,” he said with his mouth closed.

“Still, you did awesome.” She punched James playfully on the arm and turned back to Ken. “Anyway, he helped me with my homework the other night—that’s the only reason I got a hundred—so if you need any help…”

Was she seriously doing this in front of all of her friends? Sure, she sounded sincere about her offer, but anyone could sound sincere and still be making fun of someone. Ken scanned the faces of the other six people at the table, but they all seemed to be occupied by their food. Sarah leaned around Joel and said “Oh, yeah. Tara, can I see your homework for history? I couldn’t find the answer to number six.”

If Julia was trying to make fun of Ken, nobody else cared. Well, this would be a way to get Mr. Morrison off his back, at least. All he had to do was get James to show him how to show his work, and he could fake the rest. “Sure,” Ken said. “I could use some help, I guess.”

“All right,” James said, still smiling. It wasn’t hard to see why he and Julia were dating. “When’s your free period?”

“Seventh.”

“Really? I don’t remember seeing you in the library.”

“I don’t usually go to the library for free period,” he said after he swallowed a bite of corn. He didn’t mention that that was because he snuck off campus to get home early. “But I can.”

“Okay, good. We usually sit at the back near the beanbag chairs.”

“Cool.” Ken took another bite of his corn. That was one class down, at least. Maybe James would be able to “help” him with some of his other classes, too.

* * *

For a while, Ken’s plan worked. Whenever he got chemistry homework that he couldn’t just Google the answers to, he asked James to show him how to do a few problems so he knew how to show his work. Then, all he had to do was sneak a few peeks at Julia’s worksheet or get the answers online, and Ken was walking out of class with As and Bs on his homework. James was too busy with his advanced classes to help Ken with any of his other classes, but he recommended a few tutors that Ken could go to if he needed help.

Ken sat in the library during free period the Monday before his first chemistry test with his homework in front of him. Normally, he would be texting his friends right now, but nobody on the team had talked to him since the whole thing with Taylor, and everybody from his new group was either sitting at the same table or in class. Instead, he thought about how he was going to handle the test on Friday. He could always copy off Julia, but Mr. Morrison would probably be watching him the entire time just to make sure he didn’t.

He started writing the work for the first problem on his homework, figuring he might as well get a head start while he waited for James. Without anyone to text and with Mr. Morrison on his ass about not sleeping in class, he didn’t have much to do in class except pretend to pay attention, so for once he actually had an idea of how to do this, which made it a lot easier to make his work look convincing.

He was a few problems in when he realized that he had been writing the answers down, too. The right answers, from the looks of it. Ken stared at his paper for a few seconds. He actually felt… good about being able to do this on his own. Like he was actually accomplishing something besides being able to run with his bad leg again. He started working on the rest of the page.

“Hey,” James said when he came in a few minutes later, “looks like you’ve already got the hang of this.”

Ken smirked. “Easy stuff.”

He didn’t let James check his answers when he was done, but when he got home and checked online, he had gotten most of them right. He corrected the wrong ones and leaned back in his chair, soaking in his accomplishment.


	2. Chapter 2

It felt weird to be inhaling the evening spring air as Ken ran across the track. Weird, but refreshing compared to the freezing air that had pierced his lungs during the last few months of football practice last year. But that was all that was different about running for the track team instead of the football team, besides the obvious running-without-tackling-people thing. They were just as competitive as the football team, and their practices were just as demanding. Not that Ken minded—hearing Coach Bartleby yell that his grandmother could run faster than the rest of the team was encouraging in that “I’m gonna prove you wrong” way.

“Yeah, like your grandmother could run the 100-yard dash in ten-and-a-half seconds!” Ken shouted as he ran past the coach. He slowed down just enough to look at the faces of the other sprinters, but they were all concentrating on the finish line. Ken hurried to catch up with them but ended up in dead last.

Coach Bartleby looked down at his stopwatch. “Try twelve-and-a-half, pokey! Maybe if you stopped screwing around, you might make better time!”

That got the rest of the team chuckling. Great, now Ken was a loser  _and_  a laughingstock.

“All right, that’s enough for today,” the coach said. “Except for you, Ken. Your little crack just earned you a lap around the track.”

“Oh, great,” Ken mumbled.

“What was that?”

“Yes, sir,” Ken said loud enough for the coach to hear. No use in mouthing off and going for two laps. He started running down the track.

“Hey, Ken, wait up,” someone said behind him, followed by sneakers hitting the polyurethane at a jogging pace. Ken slowed down so that James could fall in next to him. “Mind if I run with you? I’m waiting for Julia.”

“Sure, why not?”

“Let’s move it, you two!” Coach Bartleby shouted.

Ken and James both sped up to a running pace. It only took a few seconds for James to pass him. James was a long-distance runner, so of course this would be easier for him, but Ken still clenched his fist in frustration. There was no way he was going to let the team cheerleader beat him. He sucked in a breath through his nose and stared straight ahead, forcing himself to go as fast as his legs would let him. He passed James with a smirk and continued to charge ahead at full speed. But at about the halfway point, he started to feel the lactic acid building up in his muscles. Christ, when did the track get so long…?

Ken felt himself slowing down. “Come on, come on,” he mouthed, trying to get his legs to move faster. It was no use—his muscles were sore, and the finish was still at least a hundred yards away. The Coach Powell voice in his head started screaming at him to slow down, that more pain did not mean more gain. Why hadn’t that voice gone away yet?

James raced across the starting point with Ken lagging behind. Ken didn’t even bother finishing the run. He went straight to the bench and flopped down to catch his breath. Bested by the cheerleader… Great.

“Not bad,” James said, his smile never leaving his face despite the fact that he was breathing just as hard as Ken. “Just remember to—save your energy for the end.” He picked up his bottle of water and took a slow drink. That was one thing that Ken liked about James: even when Ken did terrible, James was always willing to stroke his ego a bit.

They took another minute to catch their breaths before going into the gym to change in the locker rooms. Most of the other team members were already heading out for the night. James stopped to congratulate all of the boys for a good practice, but Ken just went straight for the locker room. The last thing he wanted to hear was the rest of the guys calling him “pokey” or something.

Ken beat James getting dressed and getting out of the locker room. He almost felt proud of himself for that, but that was a really dumb thing to be proud of, he realized.

“Hey, Ken,” Julia said from the bench between the locker rooms. She was always the last girl to finish getting dressed, probably because she was the only girl who had to change clothes and legs. Her smile was bigger than usual today, and she was clutching an envelope with both of her hands.

“Hey,” Ken said, leaning against the wall across from her. He nodded in the general direction of Julia’s envelope. “What’s that?”

Julia giggled and swung her legs back and forth. “It’s a surprise. I’m waiting for James so I can show him.”

“What, are you getting a new bionic leg or something?”

Julia rolled her eyes and blew some air out from between her closed, smiling lips. “No. Even though that would be pretty cool…”

If Ken had ever doubted it before, he definitely didn’t now: this girl was out there.

As soon as James pulled the door to the locker room open and stepped into the hall, Julia leapt up and wrapped her arms around his waist so that her head was resting against his chest. “Guess what I got?” she asked as she pulled away.

James looked at the envelope in Julia’s hand. “You got your acceptance letter?”

Ken pushed himself off the wall and turned to the doors leading outside. No use in interrupting their little moment.

“Better!” Ken heard Julia say as he started walking. “I got my track scholarship!”

Ken froze mid-step and turned his head to see James picking Julia up and hugging her. “Oh, my God, that’s awesome!” James said. The letter plopped onto the floor as Julia hugged James’s shoulders again and giggled.

Ken’s head throbbed. This wasn’t how things were supposed to be happening. That should have been his letter, dammit— _his_  football scholarship to the school of his choice! Why was Julia getting a scholarship and not him? His eyes fell on Julia’s wiry, metallic prosthetic leg. The familiar  _ca-chick_  sound shot through his head, making it throb again. He walked over to the couple and picked up the fallen envelope.

“Isn’t this great, Ken?” Julia asked.

Ken stared at the envelope for a few seconds. He heard Julia’s feet hit the floor as James set her down. Julia reached to take the envelope from Ken’s hand, but Ken snatched his hand away like a child playing keep-away.

“You know why you’re getting this, right?” he asked.

Julia tilted her head. “Because I do really good in track?”

“It’s so you can be a damn charity case!” Ken clenched his fist around the envelope and threw it onto the floor. “The one-legged girl who runs track—that’ll sell the tickets, all right.”

Julia’s jaw fell open as she looked at the partially crumpled envelope on the floor. Ken turned and walked towards the doors outside again, his feet hitting the floor louder than he meant for them to.

“What the hell, man?!” James shouted. Ken didn’t stop. He pushed the doors open and let them slam behind him as he walked across the stadium to the parking lot. He listened for the doors to open again, for James or Julia to come after him, but he made it to his car unimpeded. Well, good. The last thing Ken needed was another over-peppy lecture from Mr. Cheerleader.

The only thing Ken could hear as he drove out of the parking lot was the pounding in his head. His hands clenched around the steering wheel so that his knuckles paled. What the hell was this, a joke? Julia loses her leg and gets a scholarship, but all he gets is a spot on the track team where he can squander his talents and get nowhere? She didn’t deserve that. She didn’t deserve to be treated like something special just because she was a one-legged wonder.

Ken slammed his foot on the brakes as another car pulled out in front of him. His head flew forward and missed the steering wheel by a few inches. He looked into the window of the other car, holding up his left fist and preparing a string of explicatives, only to see the other driver already flipping him off and mouthing something at him. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted the familiar red octagon beside the road. His face relaxed as he unclenched his fist and lowered it back onto the steering wheel. He made sure there weren’t any other cars coming before he drove on through the intersection.

The throbbing in his head was drowned out by the sounds of the road. He realized that his hand stung and looked at the palm after he pulled up to a stoplight. A little cut, barely bleeding, ran diagonally around the center of his palm. Where had that…? The envelope. He must have gotten a paper cut when he crumpled it up.

“Crap,” he mumbled, slapping his cut hand on the steering wheel. It felt like a handful of tiny needles dug into his skin for a split second. He didn’t care. He probably deserved it, anyway, for being such a jealous asshole. Julia wasn’t getting a scholarship because she was some circus freak who’d sell tickets—she was getting it because she was the best long-distance runner on the team. She would have gotten it even if she could run down the track without that rhythmic  _ca-chick_  echoing through the air… or at least in Ken’s ears.

The light turned green, freeing Ken from his thoughts as he focused on the road. A few minutes later, he was parked in his driveway, thinking again. He needed to do something, but what? Apologize, probably, but there was no way he’d be able to face Julia after what he’d said. But why not? He’d said worse to people before. That thought hit him harder than the truck that had cost him his football career. He had said some really nasty things in the past, hadn’t he? And why? Because he needed to feel like he was on top of everyone else and couldn’t do that without stepping all over them, especially now that he didn’t have football or forged perfect grades?

The paper cut pricked again as Ken peeled his hands of the steering wheel. He reached into his pocket and found Julia’s number in his phone’s contact list. The line rang three times before Julia’s perky voice asked him to leave a message. Okay, he probably shouldn’t have expected her to answer so soon after he’d blown up at her. He got out of his car and crossed the sidewalk to his front door in a few big steps. It was Friday, so he’d have to try calling her over the weekend. If that didn’t work, he could find her at school and apologize there. She couldn’t stay mad at him forever, right?

* * *

Or maybe she could.

Julia refused to return his calls all weekend. When he got to Mr. Morrison’s class on Monday, she flipped her binder open so that it slammed against the table and shuffled loudly through her papers until class started, and then she was the first one out of class when the bell rang. James eventually warmed up enough to let Ken ask him to apologize to Julia on his behalf, but Julia refused to even look at Ken for more than a second at a time all week. He didn’t even bother going to the back of the library for free period. He knew he’d just get the same not-so-subtle silent treatment.

On Friday, Ken was sitting in the library working on his chemistry homework. Julia was standing over the printer with her hands on her hips. She’d been hopping back and forth between her usual study area, the computer, and the printer all week, but Ken hadn’t given her actions much thought. At least, not until a stack of papers suddenly hit the table he was sitting at. He and a few other students nearby looked up from what they were doing to stare at the pile that had nearly toppled over when it hit the table. His eyes met Julia’s after she had straightened it out.

“What—?” he whispered.

“Just read them,” Julia said in a stage whisper. She walked back to her usual place at the back of the library.

The sheet at the top of the stack had a picture of a football player wearing a blue Baltimore Ravens uniform. The name “Willis McGahee” was printed below it in big bold letters, and beneath that were a few details about his knee injury in the 2003 Fiesta Bowl and his subsequent surgeries and recovery. The page ended with “Currently playing for the Cleveland Browns.” The rest of the stack had the same format, some about high-profile cases that Ken had heard of, others about small-shot high school players. Near the bottom of the stack was a page with details on Joe Montana’s back injury that nearly forced him to retire. “Hall of fame quarterback, won four Super Bowls, and the only player to have been named MVP three times,” the sheet said. The next piece of paper had a picture of Julia making a peace sign on the track.

“ **JULIA DAVIS**

Lost her left leg after it was run over by a truck in 2010. Spent a year in recovery, learned to run again, and is currently the best female long-distance runner on her high school track team.”

Ken stared at the paper for a few seconds with his cheek resting on his fist. He finally understood why he hated that  _ca-chick_  sound so much: it was the sound of Julia being better than him despite missing half of her leg. In other words, the sound of Ken being jealous. He flipped the paper over to look at the last one in the stack. The photo at the top was a black-and-white scan of his picture from last year’s yearbook.

“ **KEN JOHNSON**

Sustained a leg injury in the summer of 2012 (details unknown). Recovered with the help of physical therapy and later joined the track team. Has a chance to go pro one day if he’ll stop feeling sorry for himself and start working hard. (And also if he’ll stop being such a jerk just because he’s had some bad luck.)”

Ken set the paper down. Even after what he had said to her, Julia had still gone out of her way to make this. Why? For the chance to passive-aggressively call him a jerk? He picked the page back up. No, it wasn’t just that—she was still mad at him, definitely, but she had written in Ken’s profile that he had a chance to go pro. And if he knew Julia as well as he thought he did, she wouldn’t have bothered to put this together if she hadn’t meant it.

Ken set the stack of papers aside with his sheet on top and turned back to his chemistry homework. So maybe he wouldn’t get the football scholarship he’d always dreamed of getting. He probably barely qualified for any academic scholarships with how mediocre his grades were this year. At least he wasn’t doing too bad in chemistry, and Ken had to admit that he even liked it. If nothing else, it was something to fall back on if football failed him. Ken smirked. Not like it would. Ken was one of the best sprinters on the track team, and if he practiced over the summer, he would be right back where he was before the accident. Even if he landed in some small-time college, there was no doubt that he’d be the best on the team, and then bigger schools would be begging him to play for him.

Ken leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms behind his head. Yeah, it wouldn’t be long before he was right back where he used to be.


End file.
